White movement

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with
White Power Movement, White Russia, Belarus, or Nuer White Army
.
White movement
Бѣлое движенiе
Белое движение
Leaders Volunteer Army/AFSR:
Lavr Kornilov (1917–1918)
Anton Denikin (1918–1920)
Pyotr Wrangel (1920)
In Transbaikal:
Grigory Semyonov (1917–1921)
PA-RG:
Alexander Kolchak (1918–1920)
North-West Army:
Nikolai Yudenich (1919–1920)
Also:
Mikhail Diterikhs (1922)
Anatoly Pepelyayev (1923)
Dates of operation1917–1923
IdeologyMajority:

Factions:

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Other states and factions:
Right SRs
Ukrainian State
Finnish Whites
Alash-Orda
Opponents Russian SFSR
 Far Eastern Republic
Ukrainian SSR
1922:
 Soviet Union

Latvian SSR
CWP of Estonia
Mongolian People's Party
Chinese communists
Finnish Reds

Makhnovschyna

Green armies
Left SRs

Ukrainian People's Republic
Georgia (country) Georgia
Battles and wars1917–1923: Russian Civil War 1921:
Russian Imperial Army
Succeeded by
White émigrés

The White movement (Russian: pre–1918 Бѣлое движеніе / post–1918 Белое движение, romanized: Beloye dvizheniye, IPA: [ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ]),[a] also known as the Whites (Бѣлые / Белые, Beliye), was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the communist Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945). The movement's military arm was the White Army (Бѣлая армія / Белая армия, Belaya armiya), also known as the White Guard (Бѣлая гвардія / Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya) or White Guardsmen (Бѣлогвардейцы / Белогвардейцы, Belogvardeytsi).

During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a big-tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks—from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds on the right.

Following the military defeat of the Whites, remnants and continuations of the movement remained in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within the wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of the European communist states in the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991. This community-in-exile of anti-communists often divided into liberal and the more conservative segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty.

Structure and ideology

In the Russian context after 1917, "White" had three main connotations which were:

  1. Political contra-distinction to "the Reds", whose Red Army supported the Bolshevik government.
  2. Historical reference to
    Ivan III (reigned 1462–1505),[5] at a period when some styled the ruler of Muscovy Albus Rex ("the White King").[6]
  3. The white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some White Army soldiers.

Ideology

Female White officers in late 1917.

Above all, the White movement emerged as opponents of the Red Army.[7] The White Army had the stated aim to reverse the October Revolution and remove the Bolsheviks from power before a constituent assembly (dissolved by the Bolsheviks in January 1918) could be convened.[8] They worked to remove Soviet organizations and functionaries in White-controlled territory.[9]

Overall, the White Army was nationalistic[10] and rejected ethnic particularism and separatism.[11] The White Army generally believed in a united multinational Russia and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states.[12]

The propaganda service of the Volunteer Army, the Osvag [ru] (Russian: ОСВАГ (ОСВедомительное АГентство), romanized: OSVAG (OSVedomitelnoe AGentstvo), lit. 'Informing Agency'), made the claim that "the Jews must pay for everything: for the February and October revolutions, for Bolshevism and for the peasants who took their land from the owners". The organization also reissued The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Although Denikin's troops committed only 17.2% of the pogroms (most of which were carried out by Ukrainian nationalists or by rebel armies not affiliated with any side), "white" officers praise soldiers who commit anti-Semitic crimes, some of whom even receive bonuses.[13]

British parliamentary influential leader

pogroms
and persecutions against the Jews:

[M]y task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies.[14]

However, Denikin did not dare to confront his officers and remained content with vague formal condemnations.

Coat of Arms of the Kolchak government

Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-communist

Russian Imperial Navy.[17]

The movement had no set foreign policy. Whites differed on policies toward the

western Russia, the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine on the Eastern Front in the closing days of the World War, debating whether or not to ally with it. The Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies and thus saw an exclusively monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders, such as Anton Denikin, advocated for Russians to create their own government, claiming the military could not decide in Russians' steads.[18] Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, but it ultimately disintegrated after Bolshevik military advances.[19]

Some

Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a monarchist willing to fight for a republican Russian government. Moreover, other political parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist Revolutionary Party
, and others who opposed Lenin's Bolshevik coup in October 1917. Depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might also exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army.

Unlike the Bolsheviks, the White Armies did not share a single ideology, methodology, or political goal. They were led by conservative generals with different agendas and methods, and for the most part they operated quite independently of each other, with little coordination or cohesion. The composition and command structure of White armies also varied, some containing hardened veterans of World War I, others more recent volunteers. These differences and divisions, along with their inability to offer an alternative government and win popular support, prevented the White armies from winning the Civil War.[22][23]

Structure

White Army

Main articles: White Army, White Terror (Russia), and Pogroms during the Russian Civil War
See also: Russian Army (1919), Volunteer Army, Siberian Army, and West Russian Volunteer Army
"Why aren't you in the army?", Volunteer Army recruiting poster during the Russian Civil War
Kornilov's Shock Detachment (8th Army), later became the Volunteer Army's elite Shock Regiment

The

Aleksei Kaledin were forced to retreat from Rostov-on-Don due to the advance of the Red Army. In what became known as the Ice March, they traveled to Kuban in order to unite with the Kuban Cossacks, most of whom did not support the Volunteer Army. In March, 3,000 men under the command of General Viktor Pokrovsky joined the Volunteer Army, increasing its membership to 6,000, and by June to 9,000. In 1919 the Don Cossacks joined the Army. In that year between May and October, the Volunteer Army grew from 64,000 to 150,000 soldiers and was better supplied than its Red counterpart.[24]
The White Army's rank-and-file comprised active anti-Bolsheviks, such as Cossacks, nobles, and peasants, as conscripts and as volunteers.

The White movement had access to various naval forces, both seagoing and riverine, especially the Black Sea Fleet.

Aerial forces available to the Whites included the Slavo-British Aviation Corps (S.B.A.C.).[25] The Russian ace Alexander Kazakov operated within this unit.

Administration

The White movement's leaders and first members

Mikhail Alekseyev and Anton Denikin, who originated in serf families, or General Lavr Kornilov
, a Cossack.

The White generals never mastered administration;[27] they often utilized "prerevolutionary functionaries" or "military officers with monarchististic inclinations" for administering White-controlled regions.[28]

The White Armies were often lawless and disordered.[8] Also, White-controlled territories had multiple different and varying currencies with unstable exchange-rates. The chief currency, the Volunteer Army's ruble, had no gold backing.[29]

Ranks and insignia

Main article: Ranks and insignia of the White Movement

Theatres of operation

Russian Civil War in the west

The Whites and the Reds fought the Russian Civil War from November 1917 until 1921, and isolated battles continued in the Far East until June 1923. The White Army—aided by the Allied forces (Triple Entente) from countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Italy and the United States and (sometimes) the Central Powers forces such as Germany and Austria-Hungary—fought in Siberia, Ukraine, and in Crimea. They were defeated by the Red Army due to military and ideological disunity, as well as the determination and increasing unity of the Red Army.

The White Army operated in three main theatres:

Southern front

Main articles: Southern Front of the Russian Civil War and Southern Russia intervention
In the summer of 1919, Denikin's troops captured Kharkiv

White organising in the South started on 15 November 1917, (Old Style) under General Mikhail Alekseyev. In December 1917, General Lavr Kornilov took over the military command of the newly named Volunteer Army until his death in April 1918, after which General Anton Denikin took over, becoming head of the "Armed Forces of the South of Russia" in January 1919.

The Southern Front featured massive-scale operations and posed the most dangerous threat to the Bolshevik Government. At first it depended entirely upon volunteers in Russia proper, mostly the Cossacks, among the first to oppose the Bolshevik Government. On 23 June 1918, the Volunteer Army (8,000–9,000 men) began its so-called Second Kuban Campaign with support from

Tsaritsyn and Kharkiv in June, Denikin's forces launched an attack towards Moscow on 3 July, (N.S.). Plans envisaged 40,000 fighters under the command of General Vladimir May-Mayevsky
storming the city.

After General Denikin's attack upon Moscow failed in 1919, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia retreated. On 26 and 27 March 1920, the remnants of the Volunteer Army evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea, where they merged with the army of Pyotr Wrangel.

Eastern (Siberian) front

Main articles: Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War, Siberian intervention, and White movement in Transbaikal

The Eastern Front started in spring 1918 as a secret movement among army officers and right-wing socialist forces. In that front, they launched an attack in collaboration with the

Ayano-Maysky District at that time. Pepelyayev's Yakut revolt
, which concluded on 16 June 1923, represented the last military action in Russia by a White Army. It ended with the defeat of the final anti-communist enclave in the country, signalling the end of all military hostilities relating to the Russian Civil War.

Northern and Northwestern fronts

Main article: North Russia intervention

Headed by

Petrograd
in the autumn of 1919.

Post-Civil War

Main article: White émigré
Blagoveshchensky Temple, a Russian Orthodox Church in Harbin

The defeated anti-Bolshevik Russians went into exile, congregating in Belgrade, Berlin, Paris, Harbin, Istanbul, and Shanghai. They established military and cultural networks that lasted through World War II (1939–1945), e.g. the Harbin and Shanghai Russians. Afterward, the White Russians' anti-communist activists established a home base in the United States, to which numerous refugees emigrated.

White propaganda poster

Moreover, in the 1920s and the 1930s the White movement established organisations outside Russia, which were meant to

Russian Liberation Movement.[30]

Emblem used by white émigré volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

After the war, active anti-Soviet combat was almost exclusively continued by the

Zog I of Albania during the 1920s and a few independently served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. White Russians also served alongside the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang in 1937
.

Prominent people

Alexander Kolchak decorating his troops in Siberia
Pyotr Wrangel in Sevastopol, Crimea
in April 1920
Sergei Voitsekhovskii (seated center), Major General in the White movement and later Czechoslovak Army
general
Main article: Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War

After the

Red Guards
. However, since they were nationalists, their aims were substantially different from the Russian White Army proper; for instance, Russian White generals never explicitly supported Finnish independence. The defeat of the Russian White Army made the point moot in this dispute. The countries remained independent and governed by non-Communist governments.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds.

References

Footnotes

  1. ISBN 978-963-7326-14-1
    . Retrieved 18 March 2012. Then there occurred another story which has become traumatic, this one for the Russian nationalist psyche. At the end of the year 1918, after the Russian Revolution, the Chinese merchants in the Russian Far East demanded the Chinese government to send troops for their protection, and Chinese troops were sent to Vladivostok to protect the Chinese community: about 1600 soldiers and 700 support personnel.
  2. ^ "The Tragedy of Albania's Russian Community". Russkiy Mir Foundation. 19 September 2008. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  3. ^ Sven Anders Hedin, Folke Bergman (1944). History of the expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part 3. Stockholm: Göteborg, Elanders boktryckeri aktiebolag. pp. 113–115. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  4. ISBN 1-55655-674-8
    . Retrieved 28 October 2010.
  5. ISSN 0340-6490
    . Retrieved 31 July 2015. It was Ivan III (1462–1505) who is well known as the first one to present himself as a tsar to foreigners, though it must be accepted that his use of the title was very sparse.
  6. ISSN 0340-6490
    . Retrieved 31 July 2015. [...] the brief mention that the Muscovite ruler is by some called 'the White King' ('albus rex').
  7. ^ a b Kenez 1980.
  8. ^ a b Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts in the South during the Russian Civil War, 1918–19 (The Alekseev-Denikin Period)", The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 688–707.
  9. ^ Viktor G. Bortnevski, "White Administration and White Terror (The Denikin Period)", Russian Review, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 354–366.
  10. ^ Kenez 1980, p. 74.
  11. ^ Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 689.
  12. ^ Kenez 1980, p. 62.
  13. ^ Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Legacy of the Holocaust. London: SCM, 1987, p. 138.
  14. ISBN 9780714632544. Archived
    from the original on 2016-05-21.
  15. ^ Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 690.
  16. ^ Kenez 1980, pp. 58–59.
  17. ^ "Первая лекция историка К. М. Александрова о Гражданской войне. Часть первая". www.belrussia.ru. 18 January 2010. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
  18. ^ Kenez 1980, p. 69.
  19. ^ Предисловие // Красный террор в годы Гражданской войны: По материалам Особой следственной комиссии по расследованию злодеяний большевиков. / Под ред. докторов исторических наук Ю. Г. Фельштинского и Г. И. Чернявского — London, 1992.
  20. ^ Kenez 1980, p. 59.
  21. ^ Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 90.
  22. ^ Двухнедѣльный военный и военно-морской журналъ «Часовой»: органъ связи русскаго воинства за рубежомъ подъ ред. В. В. Орѣхова и Евгенія Тарусскаго, — Paris, 1 мая 1932. — № 79. Archived 2010-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
  23. Большая российская энциклопедия
    : В 30 т. Т. 3: «Банкетная кампания» 1904 — Большой Иргиз / Председатель Науч.-ред. совета Ю. С. Осипов, отв. ред. С. Л. Кравец ed.). М.: Большая Российская энциклопедия.
  24. ^ Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 18–22.
  25. ^ "The R.A.F. in Russia". The Aeroplane. 17 (1): 82. 1919. Archived from the original on 27 June 2014. Retrieved 9 February 2014. Soon after landing we started to recruit for the Slavo-British Aviation Corps (S.B.A.C.) [...].
  26. ^ Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 18.
  27. ^ Kenez 1980, p. 65.
  28. ^ Viktor G. Bortnevski, White Administration and White Terror, 360.
  29. ^ Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 94–95.
  30. S2CID 144274571
    .

Bibliography

See also: Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War § White armies
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